Newbie questions about booting Slackware

[Debee Norling]

I've read thru the past year of archives, hoping this got answered for some
other newbie. If I missed an answer, feel free to point me to the
appropriate month, rather than feeling like you need to repeat yourself.

I cleared off my desktop and installed Slackware 8.1 on it over the weekend.
I used 8.1 because I had those CDS on hand and it's an old, slow machine.

I made two partitions, one for Linux native-83 and one for Linux-swap-82.
DOS and Windows are no longer on the machine.

The install suggested that because Lilo was dangerous, beginners should skip
installing it -- so I did. But now I can't boot. It appears that you have to
have some sort of boot loader, even if you don't have another operating
system on the disk -- is this correct?

I enjoyed Saqib's fine document on how to install Slackware with speakup,
but it says nothing at all about lilo or booting, except how to boot the
floppy you make with rawrite. The slackware install how-to has lots to say
about booting, but it's for people who want to keep other operating systems
on the hard disk. I didn't, because it sounded too complicated.

I made boot disks, and before I installed, I assembled a collection of
talking, bootable media. I've got the partimage CD, the Systemrescue CD, the
original installation boot and root floppies, the boot floppy I made during
the install, and the Slackware CDS; the first two can be booted.

So I guess I have three questions here. First, I can boot all this media,
but how do I use the Slackware I installed on my hard drive?

Second, how do I get that Slackware to boot, without worrying about
complicated boot managers?

Third, what do all these different boot parameters mean anyway. They are:

For the Partimage CD: linux speakup_synth=xxx
For the System rescue CD: nokeymap speakup_synth=xxx
For the slackware cd: speakup.i speakup_synth=xxx
For the original install floppy: ramdisk speakup_synth=xxx
and the Slackware docs say for the boot floppy you made during install to
type: "mount root=/dev/hda1" (or whatever your partition is.)

I understand what speakup_synth does, but what's all this variation in the
start command: ramdis, mount, speak.s, speakup,i, linux, nokeymap etc. At
first I thought they were all different names for the kernel you wanted
loaded, but then why do the docs for Slackware telll you to boot by typing
mount root=/dev/hda1? That makes no sense, because if a kernel isn't loaded
yet, how can it mount anything? And where do you stick in the speakup_synth
parameter in this mount command?

I hope my beginner questions aren't becoming too annoying.


       --   Debee
(Deborah Norling)
Alternate Media Specialist
DeAnza College
Phone: 408-864-5815
       <MailTo: norlingdeborah at fhda.edu>